How quickly we forget that we actually had a wet “dry season” this year and it is only in the last few days that it has been unbearably hot. I say this because, the wetter weather has given the opportunity for wild mushrooms to come up around us. Some of them are edible so that is an absolute delight to us.
Just to give you a bit of a background on the adventures of M & G:
We started foraging in Scotland about 2 decades ago; we had so much fun running into the woods to find chanterelles, boletes and all manner of yummy mushrooms. We even collected enoki in the local park for breakfast every day. We still remember the time that we would secretly go into parks at 4am in the morning to tap maple trees. Oh, and we also collected and made nettle soup, dandelion salad and lots of wild greens. Outside of work (hospital, accident and emergency and all that stuff), we started calling ourselves “Munchkin and Gnome” as a personal joke. It was a conscious way of “making light of ourselves” outside our serious medical doctor demeanour.
We think that it is important not to feel self important and that’s why we call ourselves Munchkin and Gnome. Plus we think it’s funny!!
Anyway, let’s go back to the present and show you some pictures of mushrooms that we have found on our farm.
This one started off promising and we had to wait for it to open up in order to identify it properly. It ended up being the green spored parasol Chlorophyllum molybdites. It is not edible because it causes gastro-intestinal upset although David Arora, well-known mycologist with very good books, does state that some people can eat it without any stomach upset. We haven’t tried it but occasionally, Gnome will see a whole load of these and say,
“…hmmm….should we try them…what do you think?”
I usually give him a funny look and say that I don’t want to:
“We’re not starving, my dear.”
It opens up to look like this; it has green spores which is the key to its proper identification.
This fungus looks like a type of mold. It doesn’t look edible but interesting to look at if you are into fungus and molds like us.
This one we found eating into an old tree stump. Honey mushroom, Armillariella mellea. Edible!! Very tasty. After proper identification (we examine, take spores and go through identification keys in an obsessive sort of way) we identified it and then took a test sample to eat. Whenever we find a new mushroom that we manage to identify as edible, I take only one mushroom and cook it up (usually just sautéd in oil). We both share this tiny little morsel and wait 24 hours. If we feel fine after that, we proceed to cooking up a larger portion. We are doctors after all and we so we still have to behave responsibly with foraging and all.
If you stumble across any mushrooms in Belize, Gnome would be happy to assist in identification. We would need the following information:
- Pictures of the mushroom showing the top, the underside (gills) and from all angles.
- Please make a Spore Print. Omit Step 5 ie. don’t spray with hairspray!!
- Make a note of where you found it and where it was growing.
Note that our identification efforts are geared towards determining edibility. This is for eating and no profit. Be prepared to send us the spore print if the mushroom turns out to be edible.